Guiding Good Choices Course for Parents and Caregivers Throughout Windham County in March
Windham County- Guiding Good Choices is a free, interactive, five-session course for parents and caregivers of 4th to 9th grade children. The series provides the tools and strategies to meet the challenges of guiding your child through adolescence. The course covers setting clear guidelines with both positive and negative consequences, controlling and expressing anger constructively, promoting family bonds, and preparing kids with “refusal” skills for the time down the road when trouble may tempt them.
Guiding Good Choices courses will be offered in three locations in Windham County during the month of March:
Brattleboro Area Middle School- Wednesdays starting March 11th through April 8th from 6:30-8:30pm. Facilitators will be Julianne Eagan and David Petrie. (BAMS will provide dinner and stipends for those who complete the series). Register by March 9th by calling 802-257-2175 or visiting WindhamParentingEd.org .
Townshend Elementary School-Mondays starting March 16 through April 13th from 5 to 7 p.m. Facilitators are Julie Dolan and Ellen Peters. Snacks will be provided. Childcare offered upon request. Register by March 15th by calling 802-365-4700 or emailing WRVThrives@gmail.com. You can also register online at visiting WindhamParentingEd.org
Twin Valley Middle High School- Tuesdays and Thursdays starting March 31 through April 14th from 5:30 to 8 p.m. Facilitators are Dawn Borys and Kristin Trudeau. Dinner will be provided. Childcare offered upon request.Register by March 24th by calling 802-464-2202 or emailing info@dvcp.org. You can also register online at visiting WindhamParentingEd.org.
These parenting courses are funded by the Windham County Partnership for Success, a collaboration of the Brattleboro Area Prevention Coalition, The Collaborative, Deerfield Valley Community Partnership, Greater Falls Connections, West River Thrives, and the Vermont Department of Health.
The Brattleboro Area Moderation Coalition (BAMC)
To the collaboration of the Brattleboro Area Prevention Coalition, et al, listed here in this article, I’d like to make it clear to our readers of any age that “prevention” and “prohibition” is not the primary mode of guiding “good choices.”
In order to better help our young folks less than 18 years old, “Moderation” should be a primary good-choice teaching tool, not prevention.
Prevention is a narrow and restricting approach to human adult behavior because to be an adult means to be responsible for your own actions.
You can’t teach underage people good moderation choices, and therefore, moderate responsible behavior through preventionist tools.
Prevention only increases the chances that when the underage subsequently make adult choices they will be at a decided disadvantage when normal human behavior and lifestyles comes into play.
Obviously, the words, actions and funding of the preventionists were strongly built upon the forty+ year American Drug-War’s legislative craze that overwhelmed our courts, denied judiciary independence, contributed to the growth of police militarization, created the prison complex with the long-term highest incarceration rates of our young people than any other country in the world, and, harmed and stigmatized our communities far worse than any drug or sexual activities could possibly do.
To this end, I would welcome a new group named the Brattleboro Area Moderation Coalition to try to undo some of the damage that you and other preventionists/prohibitionists people and groups have done to the good people in our communities.
~Vidda
Moderation teaching tools prepare the underage for adulthood
Teaching moderation behavior to the underage (school-age) makes more sense than prevention because prevention is an artifact of the now archaic zero-tolerance Nancy Reagan nonsense from the 1980s.
Adults may preach zero-tolerance, but they certainly don’t practice it. I don’t think they ever will.
I’ve talked to a number of students required to take D.A.R.E classes. Many of the students experienced a breakaway effect of distancing themselves from the program’s teachings. A lot came to realize that prevention was unrealistic when applied to the real adult world. In that sense, then, moderation behavior teaching tools makes a better focus to prepare the underage for the realities of adulthood.
In fact, some of the DARE students said the prevention classes were actually more harmful than helpful.
Hmmm…I like the ideal of a Moderation Coalition. I’m sure many funders (business and individual adults) would see the sense in that.